You're Not Alone
by Design Girl
Summary: Joan and Adam each struggle with their thoughts of being alone, but with a little help from their friends, maybe they will find that isn’t the case.


TITLE: You're Not Alone  
  
DATE: 5/28/04-6/1/04  
  
RATING: PG  
  
SPOILERS: Everything up through "The Silence"  
  
SUMMARY: Joan and Adam each struggle with their thoughts of being alone, but with a little help from their friends, maybe they will find that isn't the case.  
  
CATEGORY: Romance/Angst  
  
DEDICATION: To the series writers who are hard at work resolving the question of what happens next.  
  
DISCLAIMERS: Joan of Arcadia and all of its characters are the creation and property of Barbara Hall, CBS and Sony Pictures. This story is for pure entertainment and not for any profit at all.  
  
AUTHOR'S NOTES: We all have them, stories that begin so clear in you head as to direction and outcome, yet when it comes time to put it down on paper (or more correctly into a computer file) they don't seem quite as clear. Such was the cause with this story for me. I felt the need to offer a direction for the plot line following the season finale that resolved, at least in part, one of the two less than favorable cliffies. (Yes there are more than two, but are any of us "worried" about Grace and Luke's relationship?) Well, like it or not, here it is, my first solo fic in over a month (blame RL). I hope you enjoy it.  
  
FEEDBACK: I'd welcome your feedback, good or bad (so long as you're nice about it).  
  
--------------------------------  
  
He was lost again. Why did it seem that he always ended up this way? Things would seem to be going along fine for awhile and then all of a sudden...Bam!, something happens to change everything good in your life, turn it upside down and leave you lost and alone. It seemed as if it was just yesterday that he'd said something almost like that to Jane.  
  
It had been nearly a week since school let out and, though commonly a day for celebration, Adam would always remember this particular last day of school as the day Jane got sick. Since that jumbled day of returning library books, foot races, hospitals and failure, he'd tried to see Jane but she'd not wanted to see him. He wished he could go back to that night when he had been sitting beside her on the bed in the hospital and change the things that he said. Not change them into a lie, cause he could never lie to Jane, but rather to change the way that he said them to make her better understand what he had been trying to say. What he had said had come out all wrong and he'd failed. Failed to understand her, failed to find the right things to say that would comfort her, failed to hold up his side of their still yet fragile relationship. She thought that he believed she was crazy, when in truth he had just been trying to come to terms with what she'd said. Now, four lonely and confusing days later, he was afraid he was losing her.  
  
Deep in his thoughts, Adam didn't hear the soft footsteps at the door of his shed until his guest broke the silence.  
  
"Rove."  
  
Looking up from the sculpture he'd been fiddling with for more than an hour, Adam glanced up to see one of the two people on the planet that he considered as his best friends standing in the doorway.  
  
"Grace."  
  
Grace entered the shed and approached his workbench, then stopped and leaned back against the side bench, crossed her arms in front of her and calmly assessed the piece of art Adam was working on.  
  
"Hiding out here from the world?" she asked.  
  
"No," he replied.  
  
At his reply, Grace offered a quiet laugh in response, "Yeah, right."  
  
"What is it you want Grace?" Adam asked with a rough edge to his voice.  
  
"What is it 'I' want he asks," she responded. "I think the correct question would be what is it that 'you' want?"  
  
"Grace, I'm busy here can you get to the point?" Adam snapped still trying to focus on his art.  
  
"Get to the point. Well alright, I'll skip the niceties and get to the point. Are you being stupid cause it's like a phase all guys go through when they get what they want and then don't know how to handle it or is there some other reason?"  
  
Glancing up from the piece he was working on, Adam offered, "That was extremely clear Grace. Maybe a little more explanation behind why you think I'm stupid."  
  
"Let's see, an explanation..." Grace began with a sigh. "Okay, the basics. Boy meets girl. Boy and girl are 'interested' in one another. Girl has a stupid attack. Boy avoids girl. Girl wants to fix things with boy and somehow manages to. Boy is 'interested' in girl again, but girl says she's not ready. Boy finds another girl. First girl is miserable, jealous beyond belief and puts up a weak front of nobility. Eventually boy dumps second girl and he and first girl start tickling molars. Things seem to get serious between the two. The boy avoids girl again, but swears he wasn't dumping her. Girl gets sick. Boy walks out on girl. Girl is miserable again and from my observations this time the boy is too."  
  
"I thought you didn't get involved Grace," Adam replied. "I thought matchmaking or meddling or whatever was against the rules.....and just for the record, I didn't walk out on her."  
  
With a half laugh Grace responded, "Ordinarily, you'd be right, about the meddling part that is, but this time I've found I need to bend my own rules just a little."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Actually, for self-preservation, I don't want to spend the entire summer with the two of you miserable and all of us unable to do anything to enjoy our freedom. This is summer, miserable is for the other nine months of the year," she replied.  
  
"So you're just being selfish?" Adam asked.  
  
"Yeah, I suppose I am," she began. "So...if you didn't walk out on her, what's up with you two?"  
  
"I don't know, I guess I didn't say the right things the other night at the hospital and now she won't see me," he replied.  
  
"She won't see me either, but I'm not hiding out from the world, I'm at least trying to do something about it."  
  
"Wait a minute. She won't see you either, yet you say you're doing something about it?"  
  
"That's right."  
  
"Explain then how standing here yelling at me is doing something about it."  
  
"That's easy; 'you' have to talk to her."  
  
"Grace, weren't you listening? She won't see me. I've been over there everyday since she came home from the hospital, Mrs. G says Jane doesn't want to talk to me."  
  
"Well, her wanting to and her needing to are two different things, aren't they?"  
  
"What? Grace, you aren't making any sense."  
  
"What are you going to do about it?"  
  
"If I knew a way to fix this Grace do you think I'd be standing here?"  
  
"If you feel that way about it, then let's go."  
  
"Go where?"  
  
"To Girardi's house, it's time the two of you talked."  
  
"And the little issue about me getting in to see her?"  
  
"Leave that part up to me...."  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- -  
  
Twenty minutes later Grace and Adam stood on the Girardi back porch and Grace was making her case with Luke.  
  
"Look geek, it is the only way."  
  
"Grace, I can't see your point, I mean, yes, I will agree that there is some type of bond that exists in their relationship, but there is also the genetic bond that exists between me and Joan and more importantly between me and my parents, who, by the way, are going to be really upset if they find out I was even considering letting you in."  
  
"Let me put it another way geek," Grace offered.  
  
Luke, interested in any suggestion that would get him out of this uncomfortable situation, asked, "How's that?"  
  
"Are you interested in continuing our discussion of the other night throughout the summer?" she inquired.  
  
Flustered, Luke was unsure at first what specifically she was asking. When it dawned on him that she was willing to give a relationship between them a try, he answered, "Of course, I mean, assuming you are."  
  
"Let's just say then that you need to help me out on this or our discussion will have ended," Grace stated.  
  
Annoyed that Grace would put him in between something he wanted personally and something he was unsure of, Luke replied, "Grace that's unfair, the two aren't related."  
  
"Are you so sure?" she asked.  
  
Completely at a loss for a definitive response, Luke weakly offered, "No. Yes. I don't know..."  
  
Knowing she'd cornered him, Grace pushed one final time, "Choose geek, we don't have all day, your parents and brother will be back from wherever they've gone and we'll have lost our chance."  
  
Luke, still unsure, not about continuing his 'discussion' with Grace, but on whether he was doing the right thing, turned to Adam and asked, "Are you sure you can help?"  
  
"No, but I have to try," Adam responded.  
  
Luke thought for a moment more before offering, "Okay then, I guess you can take her lunch up. Meals are about the only time any of us see her these days. Meanwhile Grace, you and I can continue our 'discussion' in the kitchen."  
  
--------------------------------------  
  
Five minutes later Adam stood outside Joan's bedroom door holding a tray with the sandwich Luke had been making for Joan's lunch when he and Grace had shown up. He tapped quietly on the door.  
  
From inside the room he heard a response, "Luke, go away, I'm not really hungry."  
  
Not willing to lose this chance to see her, Adam turned the door knob and entered the room. The scene set before him scared him more than the dejection he'd heard in her voice the other night at the hospital when she'd told him, 'never mind'. Joan lay curled up in her bed facing away from the door. The curtains in the room were drawn allowing little light to enter. The whole room set a dark and depressing scene of lost hope and lost dreams.  
  
"Luke, I said I wasn't hungry. I just want to be left alone." Joan offered, still facing away from the door.  
  
Knowing the time had come to face whatever it was that had come between them, Adam responded, "I can't do that Jane."  
  
"Adam?" Joan said as she turned quickly over in her bed to see if her hearing was playing tricks on her just as her eyesight had been over the past months.  
  
"Hey." Adam replied as he walked into the room closing the door behind him.  
  
"What are you doing here? And don't say bringing me my lunch," she asked.  
  
"Jane, I had to see you. I've been trying since that night in the hospital and haven't been able to," he responded.  
  
"I know, but I told everyone to leave me alone. Seems to me 'everyone' includes you," she offered, turning away from him again.  
  
Setting the tray down on the desk Adam approached the bed and sat down on the edge. "As I said, I can't do that Jane."  
  
"Why not, it's what they do with crazy people isn't it, isolate them away from the rest of the society so that they can live in their own little world?" she commented, lost deeply in the depression that the last few days alone with only her own thoughts had driven her to.  
  
Sitting on the bed next to her, so close but yet not touching her, Adam felt the need to connect with Jane physically, hoping that his touch would somehow help what he had to say get through to her. As he reached out to smooth the blanket down over her arm, he responded, "I've two reasons really. The first is cause trying to live in your own little world isn't the answer, I've got first hand knowledge on that, and the second, well, is cause I love you."  
  
Turning back over to face him, and missing entirely the first part of his comment, she replied sarcastically, "Yeah right, you love a crazy person."  
  
Ignoring her sarcasm, Adam offered, "Just for the record, I don't think you're crazy. As for the being in love with you part, well..."  
  
Interrupting, Joan nearly yelled in his face, "If you don't think I'm crazy then what was that all about the other night?"  
  
"That's what I want to talk to you about Jane," Adam replied quietly trying to diffuse the situation and not allow their anger to put words in their mouths that they would regret.  
  
But Joan, upset, depressed and unsure of nearly everything around her wouldn't be forestalled in her anger and continued sharply, "What if I don't want to talk to you about it, huh? I've always thought that you'd believe me, then you promised you would, but, in the end..."  
  
Letting his anger at himself and his concern for the girl before him seep into his words, Adam interrupted, "What Jane, in the end I let you down? Don't you think I realize that? Don't you think I want to go back to that night and say things differently so that you would understand? Jane, I'm not perfect. If you must know I'm scared, scared about this bond that has developed between us, and scared that I'll do something to destroy it." Realizing the irony in his words, he laughed, half to himself, half out loud, "I guess I was right to be scared."  
  
Letting his words sink in for a moment, Joan pushed herself up to a sitting position. As she sat there watching Adam, questioning herself, and recalling, at least she hoped correctly recalling, all that had gone on between them before, she thought that maybe what they'd come to have deserved one more chance. "Okay then," she began in a more level and controlled tone of voice, "If you could go back and say things differently, what would you say?"  
  
He looked at her and realizing that just maybe another chance was being offered to him, he tried to organize his thoughts carefully in his head. Knowing there was really no way other than to tell her the reason behind why he'd answered the way he did, he reached out to take her hands in his.  
  
"Jane, the other night...the other night when I told you that I believed that you believed what you told me instead of saying that I believed you, I said that cause, well cause, Jane, I'm not sure I believe in God. I mean I used to when I was little, but, three years ago when my mom went away and left me, I ...um... I stopped believing that there was any one thing or one being that was somewhere looking out for everyone, I mean, there just couldn't be, not if what happened actually did. In the three years since then I've not seen much that's made me want to change what I think about it all, I mean well not for sure. So it wasn't that I didn't believe 'you' Jane, it's not that at all.  
  
Then, with the doctors all saying that you could have been seeing things for months, what was I to think? Just know Jane, that it doesn't matter to me, if you've seen strange things, or if you've not, or if you believe that there is a God or if you don't. The only thing that matters to me is that we're together. I love you Jane and I need you in my life, I don't want to go back to what I was before we were together, so please give me another chance."  
  
By the time he'd finished, Adam's voice had broken down and there were tears in his eyes. Joan sat there, watching him, feeling through the way he was grasping her hands the emotion he was trying to hold in check. When he'd gotten to the part where he said that he didn't want to go back to what he'd been and that he just wanted another chance, Joan felt a tear slip down her own cheek. After all they'd been through, whether it had been through divine invention or not, Adam had been willing to give her another chance, and he deserved no less from her.  
  
"Adam, I'm sorry I've acted the way I did. It's just that, well I was so sure for so long that what I was seeing was real, that it was really happening to me. I thought it gave me a purpose, something special about 'me'. From the very beginning of my 'visions' I guess you could call them I thought that when I told you about them, you'd believe me. Then you didn't and I find that maybe all they were is visions in my head cause of some stupid tick bite and then I'm left alone with.....nothing. I find I'm not special after all, just a sub-defective like everyone has said all along, not meant to fit in, not meant to be special, not meant to be anything at all."  
  
Adam sat looking at Joan, holding her hands tightly and trying to understand all that she was saying to him. He'd known that she was trying to define a place for herself, something that made her special. She said almost that same thing to him just a few weeks ago on the roof. He'd told her then that her continued search for who she was was what he loved about her. That hadn't changed; he still loved her, perhaps more now than before.  
  
"Jane, all of that, all of those things that you said, about finding how you're not special, about how the world has left you all alone, how you're really nothing at all, I've been there. I spent three years wandering around with those thoughts in my head, thinking there was no way out and wondering what the point of it all was. But one day, you showed up in Arcadia and made me believe that maybe there was some reason to go on. Let me be your reason to go on. I can't promise that I'll help you find all the answers you're looking for, but I can promise to be there while you try."  
  
Joan, who spent the last four days lonely, afraid and feeling abandoned, looked at the boy sitting in front of her. A week ago she would have said that the point to all of this was for her to understand more about Adam and to bring them closer, to shake her perceptions of their relationship and give them more definition and direction. Now, since it seemed all of that divine intervention stuff was just a series of hallucinations, the 'why' didn't seem to matter. The only thing that did was that maybe, just maybe she wasn't quite as alone as she thought.  
  
Joan looked down at the blanket where their clasped hands lay, trying to keep her tears in check and trying to let the realization of how special the relationship between them had become. Reaching a decision, she looked up to meet Adam's gaze and said simply, "I'll hold you to that."  
  
-------------------------------------  
  
AN: Let me know what you think! 


End file.
